Perth Voice Interactive

Spotlight on safety centre

IT has 700 cameras, is staffed by security experts and police, takes calls 24-7, and costs the council millions a year to run, but less than 15 per cent of Perth’s residents know the City’s surveillance centre exists.

This week lord mayor Basil Zempilas launched a publicity campaign trying to raise awareness of the City’s 24-7 security service. 

Mr Zempilas has been keen on bringing more residents into Perth, but a staff report on his population plan said that safety would have to be improved to attract more people.

Aggression

The report said student accommodation providers “fear that students may fall victim to physical and verbal aggression, potentially damaging the reputation of future universities. 

“They recommend increasing police presence beyond the core retail area. 

“Additionally, a high-end developer noted that, despite the high land prices allowing for high-end residential development, the area was not reflective of a luxurious price point due to safety and security concerns.”

At the June 20 council briefing Mr Zempilas said that at a consultation session with East Perth residents, it emerged that many had never heard of the hotline.

He said they need people to report issues so they know what’s going on and can work with police on making the city safer, and they’ve stuck their branded “See it, say it” hotline on bollards throughout the city.

Mr Zempilas said, “call 9461 3333 to let us know about something that might have made you feel unsafe. It might be antisocial behaviour, you might want to request a welfare check on someone you’ve passed in the street or you might simply have seen someone spill their milkshake and it needs to be cleaned up.” 

He said 000 was still the go-to number for issues more serious than spilt milkshakes.

The renewed campaign and pledge to act on tips comes two months after the hotline was criticised for ineffectiveness by a city shop manager at the April 26 council meeting. 

“The city has become a frightening place to work,” 

De Williams, a clothes retailer who was formerly based in Leederville, told councillors. 

“I have been a manager for Hurly Burly for two years, and my staff now feel unsafe working on Barrack Street.

“On a daily basis customers are either violent, or steal.”

She said they used to be able to call the surveillance centre phone number (after finding the regular police line was putting them on hold for too long) and either a ranger or police would attend. But Ms Williams had observed a recent shift, and “now they say the police won’t allow them to call on a store’s behalf”. 

Mr Zempilas promised to look into it and make sure security staff were still working closely with police. 

by DAVID BELL

“WE haven’t really told our parents yet that this is happening.” 

It’s now just a few weeks out from the premiere of a new short documentary What We Do for Family featuring producer Leslie Hornung donating sperm to start a family with his close friend Alex and childhood friend Sam. 

“That discussion is probably going to happen before the event,” Hornung says. “I don’t know. It’s so tricky.”

But from early on in the process he knew it was a story worth sharing with the public, and it was an easy choice for him to bring it to filmmaker Jennifer Piper.

“The story was just too lovely, too interesting, and too close to my heart,” Piper says, and she quickly got on board to direct the doco. 

“Because I am a firm believer, and a voracious, ferocious advocate for the idea of ‘found family’ and the importance of chosen family.

“And then when I met Alex and Sam I got to witness this whole huge, huge amount of love that these people have in their home and also within this chosen family unit.”

The decision to donate was also an easy ‘yes’ for Hornung. He’s gay and for a long time didn’t know if he wanted kids. “I knew at one point in my life, I had this idea of ‘at [age] 28 or 26, I’d have a great job and career, and be ready, and have a partner, and have kids. I’m like 34 now, and none of that’s happened. So, in my mind, I was like: When am I gonna do this? So it just made sense.”

Both were also keen to tell a story about a queer family that wasn’t a tragedy. 

This story isn’t finished yet. They’re still in the midst of the many months of screening, counselling, and filling out forms that’s required before becoming a donor, and the film highlights the extra lengths queer families have to go through to have children. The vagaries of fertility treatments are also unknowns on the road ahead. 

But both says this story already has a happy ending either way. 

“Whether or not this child comes into being, these people are family,” Piper says. “And that’s kind of cool. They just love each other so much.”

“We’ve become closer and closer” through the process, Hornung says. “And I think there’s something special about being a chosen family.”

Their short documentary What we Do for Family came about through the City of Vincent film project to tell local stories, and 

it premieres at Revelation Perth International Film Festival at the Get Your Shorts On event at Luna Leederville on July 16 at 7pm. 

HYDE PARK’S annual Pride Fairday may be on the move, with Perth council keen to pinch the event from neighbouring Vincent.

Pride has two major events – the evening Pride Parade in Northbridge and the daytime Fairday in Hyde Park.

Perth council spent $210,000 funding Pride Parade in 2022 and it brought in 30,500 people.

Over the boundary, Vincent council funded the Fairday for just $20,000, helping bring in 37,000 people.

PrideWA’s now asking Perth council to increase its 2023 funding to $350,000. The overall cost of the parade is $600,000.

Perth council’s funding assessment panel says if PrideWA wants that much money it should bring Fairday “within the city boundaries”, and has recommended the same $210,000 funding as last year.

The assessment panel was also unhappy that signs acknowledging the council’s contribution weren’t displayed along the parade route last yhear.

This week PrideWA president Michael Felix dropped a bombshell on a Perth council briefing and revealed a citywards move was being contemplated for the future.

“We are keen to explore how we can incorporate Pride Fairday within the city boundaries for 2024 and into the future,” Mr Felix told councillors at their June 20 briefing, one week before they’re due to vote on this year’s Pride funding. 

Mr Felix said the move to the city was being considered as part of a plan to grow the whole Pride festival into a destination event to bring in more people from overseas.

Lord mayor Basil Zempilas was beaming at the news: “I’m certain my fellow councillors’ and staff members’ ears pricked up when we heard you say – at the risk 

of tipping Vincent off – that the opportunity to bring Pride Fairday into the City of Perth was one that you were keen to explore.”

A couple hours later at the June 20 Vincent council meeting, mayor Emma Cole reported the solemn news to councillors. 

“I would be desperately sad if this was lost from the City of Vincent,” mayor Emma Cole said. “I believe its home is at Hyde Park.”

The parade generates about $4 million of local economic activity, and the Fairday generates about $1 million. Ms Cole said she’d heard from PrideWA that the economic activity generated from the Fairday was a key appeal for Perth council wanting to bring them over.

“Which is a little disheartening when we have a $250,000 [events funding] budget and the City of Perth has a $3 million budget,” Ms Cole said.

She proposed increasing their contribution to the 2023 Fairday from $20,000 to $25,000, which was endorsed by councillors.

by DAVID BELL

A FUTURE fund of fresh fruit for locals has been started near Litis Stadium, with volunteers from Transition Town Vincent holding a planting day for their “Community Food Forest”.

The sustainability-minded group got a $2000 environmental grant from Vincent council to launch the project, which will one day provide fresh citrus, figs, olives, and native bush species for the picking.

They held their first planting day on June 18. 

The food forest has been a community project from even before it officially started: It’s fed by compost made from our FOGO bins. 

Mayor Emma Cole put a shovel in at the June 18 planting, and said in a media release about the project: “It was lovely to join many volunteers in planting the first batch of food plants with a hearty mix of biochar and FOGO compost from our residents’ green top bins.

“The food forest will bring more greenery to the area and will be a great space for the community to enjoy and eventually harvest.”

Long-time TTV member Chris Cutress said, “We hope to demonstrate that by mixing FOGO compost and biochar with the in-situ soil, we can give the plants the best healthy start in their new location.

“We laid cardboard around the trees to suppress weeds and covered the cardboard with a thick layer of mulch from Vincent’s free mulch pile.

“People volunteered their time where they could, including digging holes, mixing compost and biochar, watering, making morning teas, taking photographs and spreading mulch.  We even had a three-year-old getting his hands dirty planting the trees.”

They plan to add more trees as species become available. 

“Many of the food plants we want to have at the food forest are not available in nurseries at the moment, so we will be purchasing more plants and holding another planting day later in the year.”

TTV also want volunteers to maintain and monitor the trees; http://www.facebook.com/ttvincent/

CAUGHT between a hopeful home builder and a street of North Perth neighbours opposing the house plans, Vincent councillors have deferred their decision and called for a more neighbour-friendly re-design.

Emotions ran high in the council chamber both this week and last, with distress evident both from the Barbas family who want to build their two-storey Auckland Street house, and from neighbours who oppose its bulk and how close it’ll be built to their properties and the street front (“’Dream home’ nightmare,” Voice, June 17, 2023).

Such passionate disputes over new builds have been common in Vincent in recent years as its legacy big blocks are subdivided and bulkier houses replace old cottages. 

The Auckland Street home doesn’t follow the usual guidelines about being set back far enough from the streetline or from neighbouring properties.

Council planning staff say the plans are reasonable because the block is so awkwardly shaped that the usual guidelines would make the land very difficult to build on.

One cause of conflict is that subdivisions are approved from afar by the WA Planning Commission, but then local councils are left to decide which houses to approve on these oddly shaped blocks.

With three re-designs already done at a mounting cost to the Barbas family, councillors voted to send them back for a another rejig and are hoping for one that’ll be more amenable to the neighbours. 

“These processes can be incredibly hard,” mayor Emma Cole said, adding she’d faced a similar situation.

“When my neighbour built their home, and I faced a one-and-a-half storey stairwell window overlooking my home and garden… I felt quite distressed by that.

“But my neighbour and I are now on good terms and we’ve moved forward, and I think you can overcome these things.

“I’d just like to encourage perseverance.”

by DAVID BELL

UNDERGROUNDING power in Vincent is looking to cost homeowners somewhere between $3,000 to $9,000 per property.

The numbers presented to Vincent council this week are still early estimates given by Western Power, subject to vary by about 30 per cent. 

Western Power is subsidising just over half the cost, putting in about $89m since they needed to replace old power poles in most parts of Vincent soon anyway, but the portion paid by ratepayers will still be about $80m.

Based on previous projects, the upper estimate for costs is likely to be just this side of acceptable to a majority of ratepayers: When the cost went above $10,000 public support fell away for a planned rollout in the Moir and Brookman precincts in 2015.

The council is planning to take out hefty loans so up to 70 per cent of ratepayers can pay their contribution across a four-year instalment plan instead of being hit up front. 

Former councillor Dudley Maier, a long-time advocate for Vincent to sink powerlines, has raised concerns about the council’s plan delaying the rollout in some suburbs.

“Three areas will be delayed by over three years,” Mr Maier said at the May council meeting.

Patches of West Perth, Leederville, East Perth, Mount Hawthorn, Joondanna, Osborne Park, and North Perth will be last in line, with construction not starting til 2030 and scheduled to finish in 2031.

by DAVID BELL